Boy, this thread has certainly gotten active. Best parts for me were some of the lines, mostly Oscar's and Stiller's.
Good points for me include the following:
New version of "I Hate Christmas".
"Carol of the Bells".
Super Grover with Box #8, good lines there too.
"AllI want Is A Snuffleupagus For Christmas", nice jab at a previous Elmo song.
Noticed Matt Vogel voiced Big Bird during the song and then Caroll Spinney afterwards handing Box #7.
The Ernie and Bert Christmas Special, points again for bringing back a classic Sesame sketch with the gingerbread man in Ernie's ear. But Prairie demoted from director to on-set assistant? And I still think Caroway Street from Square One Television was a better Bert and Ernie parody.
"I Saw Three Ships", love whenever my namesake's involved.
"Jingle Bells" with Grover and the penguins.
And of course, the Christmas cookie and the voracious blue monster who ate the counter-downer.

Negative points:
Disliked the Nutcracker Suite number.
Also, I would've maybe used Pinball Count animation/voiceover for the CGI opening of each box.
Will probably start another thread asking about the characters.
All in all, twas enjoyable and I hope Sesame gets Season 39 started on time.

Um, was there ANY reason for using a horribly cheap made cardboard set?

Why couldn't this have at least taken place in, say a airport terminal or a snowed in mall or something more creative? This was absolutely ghastly to watch, as much as I love seeing the Muppets on new tv endeavors...I couldn't stand to watch 5 minutes of this.
Absolutely insulting to even a 5 year old's intelligence...

I don't think there's ever been a Muppet or Sesame Street Christmas special as cheaply made as this. While nothing could compare to Muppet Family Christmas,
even the mid 1990's Sesame holiday specials were light years above this.

I was just asking myself since they still call them Muppets, are they still aloud to do that even though Disney owns the name.

And is Genius Productions the same people who made Between the Lions? They helped out with it too.

Click to expand...

Well Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street, Bear in the Big Blue House, the Muppet Show and even I would say Jim Henson Alternative brand is all "Muppets"..
I think in a legal way tho Fraggle Rock cant call themselves Muppets anymore, Bear and Muppet brand are "officially labelled Muppets", and
Sesame Street has an arrangement to where they can be called "Muppets".

In my view, anything Jim Henson Company has ever been involved with that is non fantasy puppet related(excluding Wubbulous World) I would call part of Muppet canon. From Sam and Friends to Tinseltown.

I really loved watching this special. Ben Stiller is the best as Stiller Elf (or was it "Stiller the Elf", I can't remember which one it was). And all of the celebrity appearances were fun to watch, too. Didn't get the chance to watch Jamie Foxx's, because I was called in for supper, but from what I saw of the first couple of minutes, it looked really interesting to watch.

It's amazing how popular Elmo is getting today, having two Christmas specials with his name in the title. I know Kevin Clash is just eating up all this attention his character's been getting.

And I know I'm one of the few who was hoping to see Kermit in the special, seeing as how it was aired on a Disney-owned network, but I was also hoping to see Bob, Gordon, Maria, and some of the human residents make an appearance, too. Wonder how come they weren't involved.

Still, this was really awesome. I hope they have more specials like this every Christmastime.

Dang, I missed the first part. But it was really funny to me! I liked stiller a lot in this special! Elmo was not that annoying to me in this and they used the right amount of Abby in my opinion. I love the Erine & Bert sketch in this! Very funny stuff! I also really likes Santa! I thought he was the prefect way to end and really added to the comedy! I also loved how Stiller reacted to the news reports about his! Awesome stuff! I loved the report where they Charles Blitzen was saying how mad everyone was at Stiller The Elf! It reminded me of those live action scenes from Muppet Babies, LOL!

Okay, so I saw it. All in all, I liked it a lot. There was some stuff, of course, I didn't find too appealing, but I feel the same after about anything I see. It had some VERY good points, and some not-so good...

The Good-
Variety of chracters: Sure Elmo played center-stage, but what else is new? At least we got to see a whole lot of other characters in new material! Grover, Big Bird, Snuffy, Count, the Three Bears, Ernie, Bert Prairie, Oscar, Cookie, the whole gang was there! (Aside from the hideous lack of speaking roles by Telly, Zoe, and Rosita. What happened there?)

Great music: Seriously, really liked the music in this one. The special really deserves an album release. Maybe next Christmas with the DVD. I especially enjoyed "I Hate Christmas" and "I Want a Snuffleupagus for Christmas" great stuff.

Grown-up humor: No, not dirty jokes, but funny, adult oriented jokes. Stiller and Charles Blitzen had some great lines. Even Grover and Abby had a few that made me laugh. But The Count's bit with Ty was the funniest, IMO.

And Muppets are just so darn cute: Seriously. These things should come with a warning label. "Do not watch unless capable of retaining extreme amounts of cuteness."

The Bad-
The Celebrities: Most of them were great! In fact, the only appearance I didn't like was Jamie Foxx, the costumes were adorable, and so was the Rat King, and the puppet movement was GREAT, but the song was horrible. And the Sopranos/Ernie and Bert segment was laugh-out-loud funny. I loved that SO much. But there were just TOO many celebrities. They took up too much time, and didn't leave any for the Muppets to shine. More Muppets I say. I mean, we saw Hoots and he didn't even sing! (Though having penguins and Grover in the same place was genius.)

Reindeer News Segments: WHY did THREE of the boxes have to go to those segments? Those three spots could've EASILY gone to three different Muppet/Celebrity things. How 'bout Telly and someone? Or even better, a group Muppet song. Why not have put the Alicia/Elmo song in one of those boxes and have Bob, Gordon, Susan, Maria, Luis, etc. cheer Elmo up with "True Blue Miracle"?

Ho! Ho! NO! - Wow... Kevin James as Santa Claus... when I first heard that I was concerned. When I saw it I became even more concerned. Why? I mean, the song wasn't good... and Santa was kind of scary. I don't think kids want to think of Santa as scary. I dunno... Though he does get props for giving shoutouts to the Muppets during the song; "Back me up Big Bird!" and "Finish it Grover!" Loved that.

The Ugly-
The set: ...What happened there? I mean, sure, the pop-up book idea was cute... but why? How hard could it possibly be to coat the set they already HAVE with snow and decorate it for Christmas? I really, really did not like the set.

All in all, I really liked it. Sure it could've been better, could've had more Muppets, and could've had a good set halo: ), but, hey! We got a new Sesame special! And it was awesome!

Great job on this one Sesame Workshop! Just use the set you have from now on, 'kay?

Yeah, really good observations, Prawnie. Especially the set. 0__0 I said my opinions on pages 1 and 2 already but you summed them up really well

Now that you mention it, where's Rosita and Telly? I can honestly do without Zoe (It's just me but I can't stand her), and I do really appreciate seeing the classic muppets on the special, but not seeing Telly, Rosita or Zoe AT ALL is a bit weird/unexpected for this day and age of SS, especially because our dear friend Abby was front and centre.

Also, lack of humans? Maybe it's cause the muppets were stuck in that awful candy cane tornado pop-up world, but I wasn't sure why there were no humans. Even just a few minutes of Bob. Everybody loves Bob!

beaker said:

Um, was there ANY reason for using a horribly cheap made cardboard set?

Why couldn't this have at least taken place in, say a airport terminal or a snowed in mall or something more creative?

Click to expand...

It's sad, because it probably took you about 30 seconds to think of those alternatives, and they could have been infinitely better. I didn't even recognise that they were on Sesame Street at first. It looked like an Elmo's World version of the set.

I agree that the set was a definite disappointment, as was the lack of Sesame Street humans. Forget Alicia Keys- where were Gordan and Susan and Luis and Maria and Bob when Elmo was sitting outside by himself on Christmas Eve?

Having said that, I do like that they COULD get so many celebrities to participate in a Sesame Street special. I didn't necessarily appreciate EVERY single skit and song that they did, but I know that there are people who DID enjoy the songs and skits that weren't my favorites. As my grandfather used to say, that's why there's thirty-one flavors of ice cream.

As for those of you who were complaining about "Listen to what Alicia says," allow me to add my two cents. Elmo ALWAYS uses names instead of pronouns. And forgive my ignorance if I'm mistaken, but it's my understanding that the king in the song who is addressing the people everywhere is just spreading the news that there's a very important baby who will bring goodness and light, and is not, himself, necessarily a religious figure. It's not as if "Listen to what Alicia says" is claiming that Alicia is Jesus, just that she's a king, which isn't even logical, seeing as she's female, not male, so it's really just three-year-old Elmo making a harmless mistake. But as I said, Elmo ALWAYS uses names instead of pronouns, which has something to do with why little Jewish girl over here didn't even notice it. But that's just my opinion, and everyone is entitled to his or her own.

Overall, I'd say it was a very enjoyable special, with the right mix of the religious and the secular, and lots of holiday spirit. And, to look at it from another perspective, I think it's pretty darn neat that a Sesame Street special was chosen for the night before Christmas Eve, as opposed to countless other Christmas specials that could have aired on such a significant night.

On a less related note, this was my first significant exposure to Abby as a character, and I've gotta say that she seems to be doing pretty well.

it was a cute special.. glad I watched it, even though i've been sick today and should have been in bed all medicated up...
kind of weird and strange at times... i didn't quite get that it was a pop up book set.. but it was cute.. sincerely doubt it's one i'd ever purchase.. it really seemed like it was more of a special done to promote a tie-in album.. so i'm really rather surprised this wasn't shown over thanksgiving and then a big cd release...

really really liked the snuffy for christmas (hubby and i both love the hippo for christmas song..) and the one with grover and the penguins.. we just love muppet penguins.. hehehe

Liked: All the songs and Celebrities. Enjoyed all the characters that either found some of the blockes in their meal or it few and hit them or they just found them. Really enjoyed Stiller and his sidekick Snowball. They were really funny and enjoyed most of all the lines. I really did love the Oscar song which was his older verison but with a more updated with Stiller singing along with him.

Disliked: Pretty much the set was kinda of a bore. It didn't have the old look like it's had in the first two speicals.

That was about it and can't wait to buy it and hope to see an album come out with those same songs.

So... You think there's a chance these songs will sneak into MCR's Muppet Merrython in the two days remaining? And I thought I heard Rosita's voice in the opening musical number, not sure what that song's title was though.

(Wow havent been on in a very long time.)
Anyways here are some stuff i liked/disliked about this whole thing.

The musical numbers reminded me of some campy 1970's christmas special, or via "The Muppet Show."

Oscar was fantastic --- as usual

The COUNT! Ahhhh I loved loved loved the whole ships thing. That was pure greatness in its own right.

Elmo, if Alicia Keys comes and sits on your door step with you, the least thing YOU can do, is NOT sing along with her.

The music was pretty fantastic.

The variety of characters used was also great, I loved the fact that it wasnt just Elmo Elmo Elmo Elmo in EVERY SINGLE BOX

Grover ANNND Penguins? = Splendid

I would never buy a Jamie Foxx action figure

The "I Hate Christmas" return was fantastic

Abby & Elmo are too cute

Of course I LOOOOVED the Bert & Ernie sketch

Stiller the Elf was okay, but the snowball, i would've loved to see him tag along with the elf.

Does Elmo get random visits from Sheryl Crow now?

Bob just needed to POP OUT of one of those boxes. Come onnnn Bob!

Anne Hathaway, your a very cute girl, but just dont sing please. Thaanks.

The appearances of all of those classic Sesame characters were great.

I love the irony of the fact that the three bears, found the three boxes, and theyre jewish?

Charles Blitzen was cute, but not cute when he appeared like four times. Sorrry.

I actually liked the fact they used the pop up set. It went along WITH THE SPECIAL

Okay and I liked Kevin's Santa Clause. But thats just me being welll.... me.

We jussst needed Kermit to appear somewhere. But that's just small wishful thinking haah.

OVERALL, I thought this was a really good attempt at making something different. Sesame did a terrific job, blending the two molds of classic & contemporary, not only with the characters but with the music & stuff as well. So I saaay 4 out of 5.
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I grew up on pop-up-books so I had a special liking for the set that was used in this year's Christmas special. I can understand why some of the older watchers didn't like it, but I think it was very appropriate especially considering that it was supposed to have happened a few Christmases ago and Stiller the elf was telling the story to the snowball after the fact.

As for the rest of the show I already mentioned my feelings on that in my earlier comment so now I will close this comment. I have to go wrap the hippopotamaus I got my wife for Christmas.

This was a pretty good Christmas special. I liked how Ben Stiller served as a narrator and they made a Muppet elf based on him. Kind of like how Burl Ives was turned into a Snowman. I always feel that Christmas specials are great when you have a celebrity narrator.

And I liked some of the musical numbers. I remember liking, I Wanna Hippopotamus For Christmas, when I was little. Here, they changed it to Snuffle-Upagus, which was also neat.

And I liked the Count's version of 3 Ships and that wool hat he was wearing. Though in Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, the Count was seen leaving the skating rink with a top hat.

And it was great that Ernie and Bert had lines in that special. Unlike in Elmo Saves Christmas, where they didn't speak.

And I kind of wish Cookie Monster had apologized for eating that Christmas Countdown device.

Even though I TiVoed the special, it would be neat if it would come out on DVD so I can watch it every Christmas anytime I want.

Everyone is complaining about the set. When I saw the previews I wondered why the set looked the way it did. After the explaination that it was a story in a book it made sense to me. To the people who are complaining about the set. Maybe you should have payed attention and just enjoyed the show, rather than worrying about what you are going to complain about and nitpick